Wallace& Gromit could soon be the subject of a second full-length feature filmfrom Nick Park, assuming the first, The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, is a big box office hit forDreamWorks when it is released in North America on Oct 7.

Ifgreenlit, the Wallace & Gromit sequel might even be squeezed into production before CroodAwakenings, the newAardman project that was announced in Cannes on Thursday as part of a publicitypush for Were-Rabbit and the upcoming Flushed Away.

Based on ascreenplay by John Cleese, Crood Awakenings is described as a pre-historiccaveman comedy. A thinly disguisedsatire on the culture clash between the English and the French, his storyfollows two tribes, one of them highly un-evolved, the other rather moresophisticated.

Accordingto Aardman co-founder Peter Lord, Crood Awakenings is likely to involve a mix ofclay-animation techniques for the caveman and computer-generated imagery forthe mammals.

Given thepainstaking process involved, Lord projects a 2008 release date for the CroodAwakenings - unless a Wallace & Gromit sequelfor which Park already some ideas, is suddenly fast-tracked by DreamWorks.